Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Publicity for event cost city $890

Las Vegas workers videotaped party for promotion deal

Oscar Goodman The Las Vegas mayor pitched Bombay Sapphire gin for $100,000

The city of Las Vegas' publicity machine billed taxpayers $890 to document and publicize to the national media Mayor Oscar Goodman's status as a pitchman for Bombay Sapphire gin, records show.

Whether that was a legitimate expenditure of public money is a point of disagreement among city officials as state ethics officials investigate the 2002 contract.

City video crews were on hand Oct. 11, 2002, for what was billed as the "world's biggest happy hour" on Fremont Street. Goodman, martini glass in hand, flanked by showgirls, mingled with the public to mark the endorsement deal that netted $100,000 for charity.

Long after the last glass was drained, city employees worked overtime duplicating videotapes that were sent to media outlets across the country.

The video news releases they compiled were rushed, at the city's expense, to MTV, CBS News, NBC News' "Meet the Press," CNN's "Crossfire" and "The Oprah Winfrey Show," according to city records.

The records detailing city staff's work on the Bombay Sapphire gin pact were among 150 pages of documents requested by the Nevada Ethics Commission last week in connection with its investigation of the mayor's promotional activities.

An Ethics Commission panel determined April 2 that the evidence was sufficient to hold a hearing to consider allegations Goodman improperly promoted his son's business venture.

The full commission also will determine whether Goodman violated state law by entering the gin endorsement pact, accepting and using a Cadillac, and endorsing a contest for Jane magazine.

The documents put the cost of shooting, duplicating the videotapes and paying employees overtime at $890. Because the event was not government TV fare, records showed the city's video services operation charged Goodman's office for work on the event.

"I saw that as something the city's video services enterprise fund should be reimbursed for," David Riggleman, the director of the city's Office of Communications, said Tuesday. "It's common for us to charge a department if it's outside the normal course of what would air on Channel 2."

But Stephanie Boixo, Mayor Oscar Goodman's chief of staff, does not recall reimbursing the cost. She said she knew of no discussion that the cost should be covered by outside funds.

"This office never received a bill stating Oscar B. Goodman needs to pay for this, or we would have paid for it out of his campaign," Boixo said.

Goodman was not involved in coordinating the city's involvement in the event, Boixo said.

Records showed she directed the city's public information office to prepare 25 tapes and FedEx slips to send the videos. "It was purely city business," she said.

Some promotion of the Bombay Sapphire deal was picked up by private sources.

Records showed Southern Wine & Spirits, which brokered the gin endorsement deal, picked up the tab for corporate press releases and a letter drafted by city staff to national media outlets in the days before the party.

The questions over who should have paid for the city's work on the event highlights the blurred line between city and personal business that have arisen through some of Goodman's promotional activities.

Goodman, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday, has defended his activities as promoting the city and benefiting all of its residents.

But the activities have brought criticism of the mayor's office.

"There's a difference between civic boosterism and hawking someone else's gin," said Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert, a Portland, Ore.-based nonprofit group that campaigns against excessive commercialism. "It's also not right to use city resources to hawk products or to hire out city resources to hawk products. What's next? Is he going to sell some city streets to Bombay Sapphire?"

Of the $100,000 fee the mayor received in the deal, half was used to provide scholarships for low-income students at The Meadows School, a private school in Summerlin. The mayor's wife, Carolyn, leads the school's board of trustees.

The remaining $50,000 was used recently to help pay the city's $433,895 commitment to WestCare Nevada Inc. for the Crisis Triage Center for homeless people who suffer from mental illness and chronic inebriation.